Why patch management is one of the most important defences against cyberthreats

We are forever being told that Cybercrime is on the rise, and most of us see evidence of this everyday whether it is in the news, social media, or an alert via email. Cybercrime isn’t just increasing – It is evolving too, meaning that basic antivirus and anti-spam isn’t enough to protect you anymore.

Keep reading to uncover why you need more than just antivirus and anti-spam to keep yourself protected

Patch management could prevent over half of all cyberattacks

In a recent study, it was found that 57% of data breaches are attributed to poor or no patch management. If over half of all attacks are related to unpatched systems, why is there little to no information about this?

There are many traditional cybersecurity companies out there such as Trend, Sophos, McAfee who claim to offer us complete peace of mind if only we just buy their solutions. Whilst their offerings do help protect us, they are only a part of the whole solution. Let us explain to you why…

Antivirus and anti-malware aren’t completely useless. However, to be completely secure you need to view cybersecurity as an onion which is built up of multiple layers. Of these layers, antivirus/anti-spam only sit in one. Patch management can help in several layers, yet it is still often overlooked. The reason for this is patch management can cause downtime for users due to the updates running. It can also slow down a network when downloading the patches.

Unless you have an IT team who look after your patch management, most people aren’t aware of when patches need to be installed and the majority of companies with no IT team do not have a overall view of their systems, and what needs patching compared to what is up to date. Most IT companies have access to tools which can carry out patch management and monitoring for companies.

Does your company look after your own patch management, or have you not thought about patch management before? Get in touch with us and see how we can help you

Ad hoc working from home setups have caused a steeper increase in successful cyber attacks

Since the initial UK lockdown, 78% of business owners have reported an increase in cyberthreats. A main reason for this is that devices were no longer protected by corporate firewalls, with another reason being the use of home equipment which was not up to date. For smaller companies, this threat was easier to manage as asking a user to keep updated was easier to check on. The larger corporations had more of a struggle and needed the help of a patch management system in order to keep everyone up to date, reducing the risk of devices being vulnerable.

We all saw the effect that WannaCry ransomware had on NHS services by encrypting data after their systems were compromised. Travelex was another corporate who recently succumbed to an attack. In both cases, these incidents were 100% avoidable and were the result of systems not being patched. In small companies this is easily achieved by manually going to Windows updates and forcing the update, or logging onto firewalls and severs to apply firmware, but for larger organisations a Patch Management system needs to be in place to monitor for unauthorised software and missing updates, particularly around Windows, Office, and Adobe programs.

Good cloud-based patch management systems work with Microsoft, Adobe, Cisco and the like and will do the hard work of reporting and indeed installing missing patches and will do this for each and every device whether it’s in your office or remote. It is also important to know that when Microsoft tell us that Operating systems such as Windows XP and Server 2008 are end of life, it means they will no longer provide security updates and therefore these systems become vulnerable to attack.

Ransomware has the power to not only disrupt your business but, in many cases, companies like Travelex never recovered. A good offline backup certainly helps but the disruption and potential reputational damage may take a long time to recover from!

Do you want to avoid being the next Travelex? Get in touch and let us help you protect your business